GRACE LI

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During my five-day residency with Daniel at La Casita de Bambú, I explored the surrounding neighborhood in Easton, PA and the Mariton Wildlife Sanctuary. I focused on taking an intuitive approach to image making, seeking to create with the intentions of stillness and exploration. All of the photographs were made on my long walks through the Sanctuary and the surrounding neighborhood, with a keen eye towards the way the light illuminates the environment. Much of my exploration was focused on the light (the way the light falls through the tress, the sun illuminating large swaths of cleared fields, and the shadows) and structure (the branches and leaves on trees, rust corroding an abandoned car, and the ecosystem of a forest). Shooting the project entirely on film allowed me to slow down and dwell in the compositions of each photograph.

After returning back to the city, I had my film developed started to curate and sequence the scans. During this process, I focused on creating diptychs and triptychs to recreate the environments that I experienced during my residency. In Shadow Play, you can see the shadows seamlessly connecting the space between two photographs, as if demanding to be placed next to each other. The Neighborhood focuses on pairing juxtaposing views of the enviroment together—the view of rolling hills from a window and a mailbox. Finally, Looking is interested in finding the intimate and quiet moments in nature and highlighting the stillness of seeing.